Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

William Otto Jesse Messenger #432 25th Battalion

William Messenger was born at Coochin to parents Jesse and Louise Messenger. As a boy he attended Boonah State School.

When William presented himself to the recruiting depot at Rosewood on 16th February 1915, he was 24 years old and was probably working in the Rosewood district as a carpenter. William reported to Bell’s Paddock Camp at Enoggera having been allotted into ”B” Company of the 25th Battalion.

In May 1915, the 25th Battalion’s initial training was complete. The entire battalion in company with three companies of the 26th Battalion and a contingent of Light Horse marched from Alderley to the city, down Queen Street to Fortitude Valley. This was the first occasion that the people of Brisbane had to farewell departing troops and huge crowds lined the route. After returning to camp, most men took the opportunity for a few days home leave and on 29th June, the battalion boarded a train for the wharf at Pinkenba. The movement of troops was supposed to be secret but many thousands of well-wishers lined the wharf as the men boarded the “Aeneas” which sailed to Sydney and then on to Egypt.

By the time of the 25th Battalion’s arrival at Anzac on 11th September, the entire front had settled into a kind of stalemate after the failures of August at Suvla Bay and Chunuk Bair. William would have been kept busy with carrying supplies from the beach up to the forward area as well as making improvements to trenches and saps. William’s file contains no entries for his time on Gallipoli and he must have been among the more fortunate to not succumb to disease or injury. Once winter approached, the position at Anzac was untenable and over a series of nights, the Australians withdrew. By the 12th December, the Australians were gone.

The evacuated troops from Gallipoli returned to camps in Egypt to prepare for the next phase against a larger and more heavily equipped enemy; the German Armies on the Western Front. The 25th Battalion had escaped Gallipoli with very casualties and after a month or two or rest and reinforcement, was the first Australian Battalion in France, arriving in Marseilles on 19th March 1916.

The usual practice for new battalions arriving at the front was to give them a period of acclimatization in the front line on the French Belgian border near the city of Armentieres. The ground in this area was so boggy that trenches could not be dug; instead extensive breastworks provided cover for both sides. The nature of the ground also precluded any large scale infantry attacks. The men of the 25th settled in to their new surroundings enjoying the novelty of piped water in the front line as well as the cafes in the villages in the rear areas which served egg and chips and vin rouge. Many of the 25th Battalion men were farm boys and they relished the opportunity to help the local farmers with the summer harvest.

On 28th June, while in the frontline, William volunteered to be included in a trench raid under the leadership of his company commander, Captain Page. The battalion war diary describes the raid as very successful, with a number of enemy killed and several prisoners brought back. General Legge personally congratulated the men involved. This somewhat low key way of fighting a war would soon come to an end however when British General Douglas Haig launched his long awaited summer offensive on the Somme on 1st July 1916.

Casualties on the first day of the Somme Offensive amounted to 60,000; of which 23,000 were killed. The “Pals” battalions of Kitchener’s New Army had been mown down in the face of machine guns and artillery; and with hardly any gain in territory. In spite of the horrendous losses, Haig had no option other than to push on. The three Australian Divisions available were ordered south from the French border to staging areas around Albert. The 1st Division AIF was put into the line on 22nd July to capture the village of Pozieres. Once the village was secure, the 2nd Division was tasked with capturing two lines of trenches on the summit of the ridge just above the village.

On 29th July, the 25th Battalion along with the other 3 battalions of the 7th Brigade attacked the first of the trench lines. The attack was repulsed and after enduring an horrific artillery bombardment in trenches that were constantly being blown in, the battalion finally captured the objective on 4th August. When the battalion was finally withdrawn from Pozieres, only 300 odd men answered their name at roll call (from a battalion strength of over 900). One of the casualties was William Messenger, listed as Missing.

The scale of the losses at Pozieres shocked both the Australian public and the military authorities in Melbourne who had the task of communicating the losses to next of kin. Casualty lists passed on to Melbourne came via encrypted cable message, with no details. Family at home were left to speculate as to how their son or husband perished, or relied on letters from mates or in some cases Commanding Officers. In William’s case, his younger brother was also in the 25th but he had been seriously wounded with a fractured skull and was not in any position to shed any light on William’s fate. As for the commanding officer of “B” Company, Captain Page who had done so well in the trench raid a month before, was among 25 officers of the battalion killed in action.

William’s sister, Lily, wrote to the authorities on several occasions requesting news of her brother, but to no avail. Enquiries were made through the Red Cross Wounded and Missing service but reports were unreliable as many witnesses confused William with his brother Edward who was wounded at Pozieres. One account, and probably the most plausible, stated that during the charge on 29th July, William received a gunshot wound to the leg. A mate bandaged the wound and William headed back to the Australian lines. The witness stated he was probably “wiped out on the way back”. William was not seen again.

William was still listed as Missing in March 1917 when an unusual letter arrived at Boonah addressed to Jesse Messenger from C.H. Goodman, a bandsman of the 2nd Battalion of the Queens’s Own Rifles, a British regiment . Private Goodman related he had come across a partially buried body of an Australian soldier. His equipment was marked as Messenger and he had with him a pocket book which contained the address of Jesse Messenger; could this person be related to you? Lily Messenger wrote to the authorities pointing out that her brother had been located but base records replied that the matter could not be followed up as Private Goodman was not a member of the AIF. Private Goodman was however true to his word and he sent the pocket book to Jesse and Louise.

On 25th July 1917, almost a year to the day since the attack at Pozieres, a Court of Inquiry determined that William Messenger was no longer Missing but Killed in Action on 29th July 1916. The Pozieres battlefield was fought over twice more before the war ended and all trace of missing soldiers was lost.

Today at the Australian Memorial at Pozieres there is a stone which reads in part :

The ruin of the Pozieres Windmill which lies here was the centre of the struggle in this part of the Somme battlefield in July and August 1916. …..It was captured by Australian Troops who fell more thickly on this ridge than on any other battlefield of the war.

Like many of the young men who “fell so thickly” at Pozieres, William Messenger is listed on the Australian National Memorial at Villers Bretonneux along with 10,000 other Australians who fell in France and have no known grave.